OC3D Review: XFX 9600GSO 384mb vs Sapphire HD4670 512mb

[JN]

"The XFX 9600GSO and Sapphire HD4670 go head to head in the battle for mid range supremacy. Who do you think will come out on top?" - by Webbo

XFX 9600GSO 384mb vs Sapphire HD4670 512mb

 

[°TheMadDutchDude°]

Nice review!

That shows you.. clock speed isn't anything compared to realworld performance, seeing that the 9600GSO can perform better and it has lower clock speeds. I think that is brilliant, personally nVidia are loosing on the higher end market due to the ATi HD4870 etc but they are king of the mid-budget market

 

[Jeddy]

Nice review, good to see nvidia making *ahem* new products to compete (I mean, its like got a 9 on the front, and a gso on the back boss, new technology!)

Good review though, and since i am looking at an sff build/mod/project log i am looking at these kind of mid-range cards

 

[MacAllah]

There isn't just one spelling "blooper." The entire article is rife with spelling errors and grammatical mistakes. I kept reading for the information, but the presentation was so horrid it was nearly unbearable.

On the intro page alone I count 3 mistakes the most horrible of which is the use of "there" when "their" is the word that should be used. Ugh.

 

[Diablo]

I reckon Nvidia aren't being beaten on the top end of the market, for anyone with loads of cash (i.e. me) the 280GTX presents a great single card solution, with less scaling issues in dual card set up.

Back on topic, great review, very thorough, nice to see the settings in Crysis. I was thinking about the 4670 as a nice card to put in a friends machine. Maybe a 9600GSO might be a better bet, but the 9800GT's look good and they are only about £20 on top.

Will you be using Crysis Warhawk to benchmark things in the future, what with the engine optimising?

 

[w3bbo]

Nice review!

That shows you.. clock speed isn't anything compared to realworld performance, seeing that the 9600GSO can perform better and it has lower clock speeds. I think that is brilliant, personally nVidia are loosing on the higher end market due to the ATi HD4870 etc but they are king of the mid-budget market

Glad you liked the review. It does appear that NVidia and ATI have changed places.

I reckon Nvidia aren't being beaten on the top end of the market, for anyone with loads of cash (i.e. me) the 280GTX presents a great single card solution, with less scaling issues in dual card set up.

Back on topic, great review, very thorough, nice to see the settings in Crysis. I was thinking about the 4670 as a nice card to put in a friends machine. Maybe a 9600GSO might be a better bet, but the 9800GT's look good and they are only about £20 on top.

Will you be using Crysis Warhawk to benchmark things in the future, what with the engine optimising?

I'll be reviewing the 9800GT shortly and will be using the GSO and 4670 for comparison so keep checking the site buddy. Benchmarking with Warhawk will depend on the game engine itself and the challenge it presents to GPU's.

 

[°TheMadDutchDude°]

Very nice. It is nice to see this forum so alive compared to other ones that I have been on, I really enjoy it and I am going to stick around

I just wish that I could now become a reviewer seeing the fun jobs you guys get!! It also helps that I push my system unbelievably high on air.. I love it but I do realise that I can screw the lot up if I am not careful..

 

[MacAllah]

Enjoy the cards, I'm too poor to buy either of them.

 

[w3bbo]

Very nice. It is nice to see this forum so alive compared to other ones that I have been on, I really enjoy it and I am going to stick around

I just wish that I could now become a reviewer seeing the fun jobs you guys get!! It also helps that I push my system unbelievably high on air.. I love it but I do realise that I can screw the lot up if I am not careful..

Reviewing can be fun and it is great to get the latest kit to try out but it is sometimes a thankless task (see above), especially when you consider the time and effort that is put into said reviews for the benefit of others. One must learn not to rise to the bait I guess.

Good luck in pushing your setup, which should become easier now the cold weather is on its way.

 

[MacAllah]

Yeah. ::steps off Ole' Starlight::

Thank for the review, I'm actually building a computer for my sister soon and my goal is to keep it cheap and powerful. It looks like both of these cards fit that bill. Ciao.

 

[°TheMadDutchDude°]

Yeah I would put in a cheap Dual Core and OC it like hell, get a good motherboard (maybe a P35) and you are good to go.

Yeah I can OC it like hell now that the weather is getting colder but I have hit my FSB wall.. won't post at anything above 440FSB even with FSB overvolt upped.

 

[Rastalovich]

Great review, nothing in it for me between the two.

Think in this case u can afford to be a fanboi either way. These are solid midrange cards after all.

 

[Diablo]

Yeah, when I said warhawk, I meant Crysis warhead...sorry

 

[Zoot]

Depending on the price I might shove one of these in the Linux box I have at home.

 

[w3bbo]

Great review, nothing in it for me between the two.

Think in this case u can afford to be a fanboi either way. These are solid midrange cards after all.

Yup, with either card the end user will be happy imo.

Depending on the price I might shove one of these in the Linux box I have at home.

Both are on the market sub £70 with the GSO slightly more expensive by a few pound.

 

[Zoot]

I'm just after looking at Komplett.ie and I can get the 4670 for €78 and the 9600GSO for €87. In the interest of Linux drivers I think the 9600 would be the better buy for me, if I give it a bit of time that is....

Anyway another great review btw.

Just curious, do you find reviewing fun or is it pretty routine after a while?

 

[x-thing]

Hello, first post for me in this forum, nice to meet you all!

Registered because I found this review curious, and it's not only this one about the 4670. I think that in the rush of comparing price and performance, many reviewers usually put against the HD4670 the 9600GSO, forgetting other fundamental things;

1-the cards are of totally different sizes and the 9600GSO won't fit many standard OEM cases while the 4670 will.

2-The HD4670 consumes far less power, with no 6 pin connector, so I'd not consider an aluminum heatsink mediocre when power consumption is also mediocre compared to the rival card.

Despite being similar in price or performance, I think we're comparing very different cards, for different target buyers. With the 4670 you can be sure you can upgrade almost any HTPC or any Dell or HP case, without worrying about your card intersecting something. The HD4670 is maybe the most important card of this year because after the HD2600/3600 and GF8600 fiasco, it's the first mainstream card in mainstream format in a long time (small PCB, no 6pin power) and it's most direct competitor should be the 9500GT (which is not) while the 9600GSO is better aligned with the HD3850.

In this perspective nvidia is still sadly falling short of the objectives even in the midrange and as of direct competition, I'd rather see the HD4670 leading alone for the moment.

 

[Zoot]

Welcome to the forum x-thing.

In this perspective nvidia is still sadly falling short of the objectives even in the midrange and as of direct competition, I'd rather see the HD4670 leading alone for the moment.

Yeah it's pretty much Red all across the board atm.

Nvidia took a right chance with the GT200 with its huge die size - it's not exactly cheap for the them to make, and thanks to their price drops you can be sure they're not selling them for much of a profit anymore.

ATi's RV770 was a much better chip in many respects, it performs great and it's a lot cheaper for the them to make (55nm V 65nm and a much smaller die).

 

[w3bbo]

1-the cards are of totally different sizes and the 9600GSO won't fit many standard OEM cases while the 4670 will.

2-The HD4670 consumes far less power, with no 6 pin connector, so I'd not consider an aluminum heatsink mediocre when power consumption is also mediocre compared to the rival card.

You make some good points X-thing, welcome to the forum too!

While I agree the cards are different sizes, the performance and price are still similar which make for a valid comparison. I agree that they could be considered for different markets, SFF being one of them and as such this was also mentioned in the review. However, when someone goes shopping, especially someone not willing to spend vast amounts of cash, will surely want to see how much performance they can get for their cash, bang per buck as it were and so the cards were compared on this basis.

I criticised the use of aluminium as if they had used copper then the fan might not have spun up so fast, making for more efficient cooling properties. As you previously pointed out, buyers of SFF and media centers etc may well be considering this card. If it were me shopping for such a card, I would want a near silent cooler, which sadly the 4670 has not, due in part to the aluminium heatsink.

We couldn't really compare the 9600GSO against the 3850 as that card is previous generation so would be unfair and to be quite honest uninteresting. Apart from the fact, we do not always have every card in this and the last generation from which to choose.

 

[x-thing]

Yes webbo, I completely understand your reasoning; price and availability rule when it comes to the common buyer, and I totally agree here.

Not particularly this but as I said before, many other sites the put the 4670 too much on the personal with the GSO. Yes especially where I live or in the USA it is an absolute steal, however, there are other scenarios the 4670 is the way to go and maybe that could have been made clearer in the conclusions, because it's there that most people jump before reading the whole review and sometimes it does not just "come down to what screen you are looking to game on"; I couldn't use my HD3850 in my sister's 350W PSU PC, and had to swap it with a 4670 first. People seeking quad display with graphics performance will get lots of power savings and cooler systems with two of them compared to two 9600GSOs or 3850s.

The fan is loud, yes, that aluminum heatsink is Sapphire's way to spare some money,the stock cooler is much better. I have also seen a dual slot version from asus, big silent fan on top, that should be nice for HTPCs.

Anyway, let me say that your review was very precise and well made,was interesting to see the slight superiority of the 9600GSO, with the 4670 taking over @ high resolutions, probably because of the 512M of RAM vs 384 of the GSO.

P.S: Just a small question on the sapphire cooler, was it loud or very loud, because I think this is the model I am getting to replace the 3850.